Austin, TX: I'll Be Your Tongue's Proxy

Austin has a diverse and varied culinary scene. It ranges from airstream trailers serving crepes to fine dining with views of the lake. Many Austinites dine at taco buses for lunch and enjoy hip downtown spots for dinner. We have James Beard nominated chefs, top quality sushi, the best Mexican food this side of the border, and incredible weekend brunch choices. In fact, we have so many options it would be nearly impossible to try them all. But that doesn't mean I won't attempt it.

I was excited, real excited. My brother asked me to help him out with some stuff down in Lockhart and my first thought was BARBEQUE. My first job was in a BBQ restaurant and I managed a BBQ place after college for two years. I love me some BBQ. So I knew what I was having for lunch. Problem is there is the big three in Lockhart: Blacks, Smittys, and Kruez. A decision was foisted upon me. Luckily I had the chance to eat at Kruez last year, I never blogged about it but honestly wasn't that impressed, sorry RA. I have friends that would fight to the death over who serves up the best BBQ. Any good Texan should have a friend that will blindly follow their favorite meat purveyor till the end. I, however, will let my tongue decide.

Since I had been to Kruez before and I knew Smittys didn't offer sauce Blacks was the obvious choice. Now, sauce is a whole other argument amonst these BBQ establishments. I think Barbeque needs sauce in order to truly make it Barbeque but I understand the purists who think the meat should stand alone. I am just stating my preference here.

I finished my work earlier than I thought I would and ended up in front of Blacks at around 11:15am. An early lunch but I had skipped breakfast so I was hungry. Blacks seems like a BBQ place that has been around a long time, it has. It has been in the same family since 1932 which gives it tradition points. I walked up and was informed that it was cafeteria style and grabbed a plate. I am pretty traditional myself so I went with the standard beans and potato salad as my sides along with a nice helping of pickles. I behaved myself and skipped over the pudding and cobblers. By the time I made it to my table my plate looked like this:

What? I was hungry. How was it? Average. The whole situation really just ended up making me sad. I really wanted an amazing experience and what I got was average barbeque. As you might be able to tell from the picture the brisket was almost pure fat. There was very, very little meat and I tend to like the marbled brisket. The sausage had a decent flavor but was somewhat gritty and lacked that snap that bbq sausage should have. The rib was the highlight. It had a great smoky taste and was nice and tender. The pickle relish side was awesome. The sides were decent, but nothing to write home about. The real disappointment was the sauce. There was nothing to it. It lacked heat, it lacked sweetness, it lacked substance. In the end I just ate the meat with none.

My conclusion on Lockhart: simply stay in town and go to Rudy's or just a bit south to Salt Lick. Lockhart doesn't do anything special enough to warrant a Barbeque Roadtrip that everyone is so fond of taking.

I realized nearly a year later that I didn't ever blog about my food adventures in San Francisco and the surrounding area. I am pretty sure that 95% of my excitement over our trip last summer was over the many, many abundant choices of dining options. So I am here to inform you why San Francisco is easily one of the top 5 places in the world to indulge our body with the thing it wants the most: food.

This list is in no particular order..they are all just great.

1. Humphrey SlocombeThis place had some of the most wild Ice Cream flavors ever. They rotate daily I thought the actual texture and flavor was quite a bit better than the popular Bi-Rite Creamery. With flavors ranging from McEvoy Olive Oil to Guinness Gingerbread to Boccolane Prosciutto there was never a moment lacking excitement. They also offered the classic vanilla, strawberry, etc. The Ice Cream was so good we actually took a bus ride out of our way to have it one day.

2. Chez PanisseThis place is renowned for being local, in fact Alice Waters was one of the pioneers of the idea of locally grown food being served up in a restaurant. The place easily lives up to it's reputation. It was one of the best meals of our trip if not my life. We went through three delectable courses. The first was a Sand Dab (never had it before this) which was the best fish dish I have ever had. For our entree was a wood fired porcini mushroom lasagne. The dessert, oh man, was amazing. Fresh blueberry and nectarine cobbler with burnt caramel ice cream. WOW! If you are in the bay area, make it a point to go eat here even just for lunch like we did. When you are done, walk across the street to the Cheese Board to pick up some amazing cheeses and fresh breads.

3. Angelo's Wine Country DeliAn amazing little side of the road stop on your way into wine country. Probably the best sandwiches I have ever had. Mind you I did eat them with this as my view:

However, Claire and I discovered something I am pretty sure is non-existent to rare in Texas. The Dutch Crunch bun. This amazing, crunchy, sweet, soft bread wrapped up a delicious chicken salad sandwich that was the perfect start to touring wine country. Worth the trip just for that bread. They did have that awesome view and house smoked jerky as well.

4. AvatarsIndian/Mexican Fusion, yeah thats right, both of them on one plate. It isn't actually as much of a stretch as you would think. The flavor profiles of both countries' cuisine are fairly similiar. This place not only had the combined flavors of Mexican and Indian spot on they also had a great small restaurant vibe. You could even watch the guys work in the kitchen and coming from someone with experience in a kitchen these guys were good (super fast). We were given Naan and chutneys to start with and had some amazing samosas for our appetizers. For our entree we had the Punjabi enchiladas. Unique, delicious, satisfying and very curious. It was a delicious mix of tamarind, curry, and Mexican seasonings that someday I must have again. FYI they can also make any dish on the menu vegan, vegetarian, or gluten free.

5. Little Star PizzaThe best pizza I have ever had. You might see a recurring them of "bests" on this little trip through San Francisco, but the reality is the food is just that good. The crust is really heavy on corn meal which when baked up comes out really crunchy and with a lot of texture. I loved it.

The pizza is deep dish style and is piled with toppings and consequently gooey flavor. Any pizza lover should try this place at least once. Also the garlic bread is awesome because it is a deconstructed version. The butter, bread, and garlic are all seperate and require assembly. If you have never had fresh roasted garlic still in the bulb then you need to try it.

6. Genki CrepesProbably one of the wierdest experiences as far as places to eat at, yet also one of the coolest. Genki is in a cool little neighborhood and only a few blocks from a bookstore that I fell in love with: Green Apple Books. Genki is basically a Japanese convienience store that serves up some amazing crepes. I haven't been to Flip Happy or so I don't have much at home to compare it to but all I know is that the crepe is warm and just a bit crunchy and they load it up with a bunch of toppings. The way it is served reminds me of Mighty Cone (haven't eaten there yet either) .I had the chicken with Sweet Chili and it blew my mind. Later on we came back for a dessert crepe and it was just as good. While you wait for your food you can have a grand time looking through all the toys, candy, and random japanese items in the store.

7. Creme Brulee CartYou have to work for this one. The location is broadcast daily via twitter similiar to how Chilantro works here in Austin. The only difference is that Creme Brulee Cart sets up in random places around the district and has to work on the down low because, simply put its a cart and doesn't meat food handlers requirements. This one one of the most fun experiences we had in San Francisco. Earlier in the week we found out he was going to be gone for the extent of our vacation but later on twitter posted about a secret time that he was service creme brulee. Naturally we hunted him down through the alleys and streets of the mission only to find a decent sized line of people waiting for their creme brulee out of a cart.

It was pretty good creme brulee too. Not the best ever but totally worth the hunt, plus that just made it taste a little bit better. That and the fact that we were out of towners hunting down a very localized thing.

San Francisco is a food lovers dream and someday I hope to go back and have another round. other places we went that were good but just didn't quite make the cut of the best of the best:A16 - Nate Applemans restaurant, not bad, cool atmosphere, but food wasn't mind blowing.Slanted Door - cool atmosphere, but was hyped up in my head so much that it was a let down.Beard Papas - delicious little cream puffs .Dosa - solid Indian food, hip place.La Note - cute little place with some amazing French breakfast (Berkeley).Bridgeway Cafe -little breakfast place in Sausalito, great view of the bay.Caffe Greco - breakfast place in little italy, very cool area, food was tasty too.Three Twins Ice Cream - really good simple flavors and organic.Fritz - same concept as Frietkot here in Austin, good sauce flavors.El Faralito - great hole in the wall burritos, we were dying for Tex-Mex at this point.Ikes Place - sandwiches that everyone talks about, heard about them well before our trip, they were good.

I apologize in advance for the below par quality of photos. We failed to bring anything more than an iPhone for pictures. Let me also preface this review with the fact that in general I am not a huge fan of German food. I am always willing to give things a chance but rarely am I blown away with German cuisine. However, Claire is a huge fan and this place is a biergarten as well as a restaurant and it's literally up the road from our house so I was up for it.

I first saw the sign for NB about a month ago and was pretty excited about a local biergarten. I was sad when Pflugerville Pizza and Wing Pfactory went out of business so it was good to see something going up in its place. NB did a very nice job converting this strip center space from a sports bar into a homey German eatery. The place was opened by a young couple who run the place while their mother is the chef in the back.

I will start off with my one and only critique which isn't a very major one. They only had 4 beers on tap. That doesn't exactly say beirgarten to me, however they did have franziskaner and spaten oktoberfest as two of the four, so I forgave them. In fact I ordered a franziskaner and was happy with the $4 price tag and that was for a 23oz pour. Not bad at all. Plus their bottled selection is actually one of the best I had seen with a nice variety of rare german brews and tasty craft beers. They more than made up for the lack of draft selection with a large choice of bottles and great prices.

The food, oh my goodness the food. Our awesome, friendly, and informative waitress told us up front that they were out of the apple pancakes, potato pancakes, and crepes (2 of those were desserts). All three of those sounded delicious and I am guessing by the popularity that they are, so that is enough of a reason to go back. We started our meal off the baked brie. It was definetly the right choice and a great suggestion from our waitress. It is lightly battered, then baked up till just gooey then served with jam and toast. I had no idea how much I liked toast until it is smothered in a concoction of sweet jam and savory brie.

For our entree we had the Schnitzel Hawaii. I don't think this is a traditional german flavor but it was delicious. Crunchy fried pork filet topped with a bright yellow gravy composed of pineapple and curry. In my head it sounded great but at the same time sounded like it could go horribly awry. Luckily the earthy flavor of the curry wasn't to bold and the pineapple wasn't too sweet. It was a nice blend that really complimented the pork. My only suggestion would be to add more of the gravy. Since I am not a cabbage fan and we split the entree we went with fries for the side which were your standard shoestring, unremarkable fries.

Even though we were pretty full our server talked us into the cake of the day. An almond cake was presented to us with an espresso icing, a couple of hand picked fresh pecans and a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream. I love cake and ice cream so that was the perfect end to delicious meal.

The prices vary depending on what you get but the quality of food, the feel, and the customer service are excellent and I hope that Nuernberg Brauhaus has a lot of success. We will be going back for sure to taste the crepes and hopefully some other tasty German food. Plus anything other than chain food and mexican food is welcome here in Pflugerville. It would be great to see NB achieve the notieriety of Mangu and European Bistro. Really I am just excited to have a cool place by my house to grab a beer and delicious food.

When: Very Often since DecemberWhat: Promise Pizza (Off AW Grimes in Round Rock)

Normally I would feel you in with a "what I had" section but I have had a lot of their pizza. Ever since I took advantage of a blogger night at Promise Pizza I have been hooked. Admittedly it is hard to give free pizza a bad grade. Especially when I love pizza, I mean honestly, it is really hard to make bad pizza. Even the greasy cheap stuff or the microwavable kind will satisfy. However, there was something different about Promise Pizza. Maybe it was the organic ingredients, the gluten free crust, the diary free cheese, or the smart cars they use for delivery. Then I decided it was really just the quality of ingredients. I wanted to take my time deciding what I really thought so I gave it um...well...three months. Admittedly I have been a bit lax about blogging but I wanted to make sure I could justify this statement: Promise Pizza makes my favorite pepperoni pizza EVER!

I know I am getting crazy but the stuff is seriously delicious. They use pepperonis that are huge. I am talking deli-sliced size. At the blogger event we got to taste everything from their jalapeno appetizers (which are delicious) to the Daiya Vegan Cheese pizza (below)

to the BBQ chicken and so many more. Everything was superb. Like I said it all goes back to the quality of ingredients. They use quality cheeses that don't leave a greasy puddle on top. They make their own organic dough in house everyday and they really do care about the quality of their pies.Each time I have gone back I have been satisfied with the price for the quality as well as the options I am given. Right now they are matching competitors coupons and even went as far as to give out complimentary chocolate covered strawberries on Valentines Day. I have yet to eat pizza anywhere else and am not sure I ever will. The kicker is that I am not even in their delivery area and I am still willing to drive to get those crisp and thick pepperonis on perfectly chewy dough. MMMM.....those simple letters are the best endorsement I can give.

From what I have heard they are on the franchising path so keep an eye out down south for a new location.

That's right: free sandwiches. I am sure most of my readers have heard/seen/or talked to me about the Launch/re-Launch party happening this Sunday, the 22nd, at Obee's Deli. I just wanted to say that you really can't miss it. There will be free beer, free sandwiches, free music, a raffle, and some art for sell. Really how can you miss an event with all of that. Plus it is supposed to be a beautiful 71 degrees. Here is the flyer. Feel free to post on your blog and help spread the word. The more people the merrier. Read below for descriptions and information about the people participating.

WholeNine: A personal concierge service, started by yours truly. We offer a wide range of services to help you gain a few extra hours in the day. Do you really want to stand in line at the post office, get groceries, have the oil changed, and call to set up your appointments? We can do it for you. Check us out at www.WholeNinelifestyle.com

Obee's Deli: These are the wonderful people that are hosting and serving free sandwiches at the event. They have been in Austin for 8 years and honestly they have some of the best sandwiches and deli food in town. There lebanese specialty items are to die for and they are amazing and caring people to boot. If for no other reason then come out to support this amazing husband/wife team. Plus their cute son will be there to entertain.

Vignette Photography: Two amazing photographers will be on hand to chronicle the event. Plus they have graciously volunteered to set up a photo booth so that attendees can have a good time. Check out there work and help support some good friends. www.vignettephoto.com

Movember: An amazing group that is helping raise funds for mens cancer. We are supporting them by giving proceeds from the raffle to their fundraing efforts during the month of November.

Jason Poe: Another good friend who deserves your support. He is a local musician who fronts the band Jets Under Fire. His songs are full of passion and meaningfull lyrics that will strike your soul. So come out to hear some of his work as he entertains during the event. You can download 3 of their EP's for free at their website.

Lex Land: Another amazing local musician. She recently moved back to Austin from LA and has one of the most amazing voices you will hear in Austin. Her style is kinda throwback but she makes it fresh and is a joy to watch. She will also be playing some tunes for your enjoyment at the event.

Jen's Whims: local artist and all around craft maker will be out displaying some of her work which you can pick up for a great price. Now that it is finally getting chilly you might want to get your hands on one of her one of a kind scarves. She has a lot of great pieces that would make a great gift for yourself or maybe someone you care about. Check out her stuff on Etsy.RAFFLE: The Prizes: 5 people will win gift certificates to Obee's (Sandwiches for 2) 1 Person will win art from etsy seller Jen's Whims 1 Person will win 2 hours of service from WholeNine 1 Person will win the grand prize of a 1 hour photo session with Vignette Photography, including an 8X10 and online gallery.

Did I mention free food and beer. Please come out and help us celebrate and please help spread the word by telling your friends.

Heaven has ascended on Austin in the form of a donut. A fresh, made to order, smothered in your choice of delicious goodness donut. The genius creators of Gourdough's (Big.Fat.Donuts) has brought what might be and probably is the most tempting and hard to resist airstream food trailer yet to grace the streets of Austin.

I can't down play the idea of how smart a gourmet, fancy donut place is. Especially for south Austin. The flavor combinations and donut concepts are great and they all sound and most likely are delicious. I am pretty sure you can find something that everyone will like. Go Now.

Since Claire and I are big fans of all things donut we made a special trip all the way from Pflugerville to S. Lamar just for this, at 10pm. Seriously, we drove 35 minutes for donuts. They had a donut version of rum cake (my favorite) and a heath chip covered one (Claire's favorite candy) and so the madness ensued. We each had one and we each needed to sleep for a few days afterward.

I'm just gonna break it down for you:

1) They have over 20 different flavor combinations of Donuts (including one with oreos, one with a chicken strip, and of course one with bacon).2) They make them when you order them. That means they are piping hot.3) They aren't breakfast donuts. That is why they are open 12pm-2am.4) They aren't light and fluffy like a traditional donut, more dense, chewy, and sweet, like cake almost.5) Be prepared for either a sugar coma or a really long nap after eating one.6) Go there daily...yes they are that good and I can only thank God we live so far away or I might be huge7) Add a scoop of ice cream if you want to get crazy8) The owner was awesome and even came out to ask if there are any improvements that needed to be made9) Try the Sailor Jerry...it's amazing!

It's the best idea ever for a food trailer, they are spot on with the delivery of the concept and I can only barely hold in my excitement to try the other 21 flavors I have yet to taste. Heaven has arrived on south Lamar.

When I first heard about Frank I wasn't so sure. I wasn't sure that a place with downtown lease rates could sustain itself for very long on only the profits of hot dogs. However, as doubting as I was, I still had a inkling of curiosity about owners/operators that were bold enough to try a fancy hot dog place.

On Sunday I had the chance to satisfy my curiosity, in fact I think the curiosity almost killed me. I will never be one to doubt the mighty dog again. Flavors of Austin was throwing a kickoff party at Frank this Sunday and I happened to be lucky enough to check it out. I have been to a couple of the blogger happy hours before and let me say this before I get any further: Frank was the best Blogger event I have attended. I say this for many different reasons. They had an open bar, they had an open coffee bar, they sampled 3 of 4 different breakfast items (Which premiered the week of the event), they had a hot dog bar, and they sampled 4 out of 5 of their specialty sausages for the week. On top of that they may have had the friendliest servers, bartenders, and employees of any restaurant I have been to in Austin.

Yes, it was all free so it would be hard to talk bad about Frank after being treated so royally. It really was that great.

The ironic part was that the hot dog at the hot dog bar was the most disappointing item of the night. It was a Chicago style dog that lacked any pizazz. The hot dog confirmed my original suspicion of impending failure for any hot dog place trying to survive downtown. As the night progressed I was happy to forget these preconceived notions.

Each Kolache from the simple sausage and cheddar down to the sublime chorizo and potato was a step closer to making a believer out of me.

After Claire and I each tried 3 different cocktails we had established that the bartenders were creative and quite skilled. We ran the gambit and had everything from a take on a cherry limeade to the classic Manhattan with a bacon twist to a simple melon drink.

Claire was all to eager to try the drinks that involved Amy's Ice Cream. Of course, they were both delicious. My nod of approval goes to "Cream" over the "Rummy Root Beer".

Beyond the drinks and hot dog bar we got to sample the reason why I think Frank is something special: made in house specialty sausages. We sampled four of them and the Crawfish & Pork sausage was the best. All of them were excellent quality, super tasty, and one of the many reasons to go to Frank.

The main reason I can't say enough good things is that every staff member we talked to was informative, friendly, and more than happy to serve us. The bartenders were amazing, Tania is doing an amazing job so go visit her during happy hour (4-7). Tyler (the coffee bar Manager)

was more than happy to teach us the reasons why Frank coffee is the best in all of downtown Austin. He chatted with Claire and I for well over 45 minutes and let us sample about 5 different coffee drinks and I can honestly say it was some of the best coffee I've ever had.

Simply put, Frank is a place that you have to visit. From the warehouse feel with woods and brick to amazing cocktails and delicious sausage they cover it all. Plus it is presented to you buy one of the best staffs in all of Austin. Go check it out if for nothing else than curiosity! After all curiosity killed the cat not the dog.

"Food is our common ground, a universal experience." - James Beard

About the Author

My name is Chance, and I'm a self-proclaimed foodie. Feel free to visit my blogger profile to learn more about me and my passion for food, photography, and music - as well as find various ways to contact me. You can also email me any time at: ecpatrick3284(at)yahoo(dot)com.